Over the Christmas / New Year holiday time the New Zealand Herald
newspaper ran this series of articles with journalists giving their
suggestions for New Zealand's favourite family film for The Great
Family Film Poll ...


*Oliver!*
When I was a kid, we didn't have animated ice princesses
screaming "Let it go". No, we had gangs of Victorian
street urchins and their masters, all singing about
petty thievery, child labour and malnourishment.

Ah, yes, the good old days of classic British cinema.

I'm not sure when I first saw Oliver! on the big screen.
It certainly would have been later than 1968 when it
first came out.

But it's stuck with me, this film of the stage musical
of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist.

It was thrilling, frightening, grim, violent. But it
sure had great tunes. Still does.

It had some terrific faces and voices among the adult
cast, too. Ron Moody as Fagin, Oliver Reed as Bill
Sikes and Harry Secombe as Bumble, the ogre who stares
down Oliver when he makes his request for a second
helping of orphanage gruel.

While its kid stars - including Mark Lester as Oliver,
Jack Wild as the Artful Dodger - made you want to join
their gang-as-chorus line singing Consider Yourself,
Food Glorious Food or You've Got to Pick a Pocket or
Two.

It remains a great introduction to musicals and the
world of Charles Dickens, too. Yes, it might look a bit
dusty these days but Oliver! is a classic and a good
way to convince boys and girls that musicals don't have
to be about animated ice princesses either.

They should see the Oscar-winning original before the
forthcoming remake by the folks who gave us the 2012
version of Les Miserables. Russell Crowe as Fagin? Hugh
Jackman as Sikes? Quite.

- Russell Baillie, New Zealand Herald Entertainment Editor
7 January, 2016

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